Breaking Down Barriers - Matthew 15:21-39
On November 9, 1989, a wall that separated East Berlin from West Berlin was knocked down. Families were reunited, a city was made whole, and history was made.
On May 14, 1948, Israel was declared to be a recognized nation after Jewish people spent years in exile. The Jews had returned to the Promised Land.
When Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 a very important wall started to come down. The wall of color started to come down. It culminated in 1870 with the 15th amendment giving people the right to vote “regardless of race, color or previous condition of servitude.”
On August 18, 1920 The 19th amendment to the Constitution broke down the wall between the sexes and guaranteed women the right to vote.
Our text this morning tells about an important wall that Jesus was tearing down: a wall between the Jews and Gentiles. It was a wall that had existed for thousands of years. It’s dismantling is a work of nothing less than the grace of God! This work was continued by Peter and then later by Paul.
The first part of Matthew 15 tells us about and encounter Jesus had with the Pharisees. Last week we learned that the Pharisees were men who were concerned about the law and the things that made the Jews distinct from others. In this part of chapter 15 the scene changes and we see the deep and abiding faith of a Gentile woman. In other words, Matthew shows us how Jesus was turning the status quo upside down.
We start with the context
21 Then Jesus left Galilee and went north to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
Tyre and Sidon were major seaports and gentile cities that were part of the Roman province of Syria. Tyre was about 25 miles north of Galilee (where Jesus and his disciples were). Sidon was another 25 miles away. Needless to say this journey would have taken several days on foot.
This is the only time we read of Jesus going beyond the borders of ancient Israel.
A Woman Who Refused to Take No as an Answer
22 A Gentile woman who lived there came to him, pleading, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! For my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely.”
23 But Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. “Tell her to go away,” they said. “She is bothering us with all her begging.”
24 Then Jesus said to the woman, “I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel.”
25 But she came and worshiped him, pleading again, “Lord, help me!”
26 Jesus responded, “It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.”
27 She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their masters’ table.”
28 “Dear woman,” Jesus said to her, “your faith is great. Your request is granted.” And her daughter was instantly healed. [1]
This Gentile woman makes quite a declaration. She calls Jesus Lord and Son of David. “Son of David” was a title of the Messiah. “Lord” could have been merely a polite address or it may have been a declaration that she saw Jesus as the One to whom she wished to submit her life. (People talk about the “Lord Jesus” in these two different ways today as well.”) She sure sounds like someone who “gets” who Jesus is. It is a startling declaration from a woman who is not Jewish.
On the surface it seems like Jesus is rude and insulting to this woman. First, he ignores her, then He says he can only help the Jews, and then He seems to call her a dog! This doesn’t seem like the Jesus we know.
However, there are three possible explanations,
Jesus was rude and didn’t want to deal with the woman. I dismiss this because it does not fit anything else that we see of Jesus or of the heart of God.
He was stretching the woman. Sometimes God is silent to deepen our faith. Sometimes He allows us to go through times of trials or tests us so we can grow strong and develop deeper roots.
He was setting the stage for a life-altering moment. It is possible that Jesus was creating a sense of anticipation in the crowd. If Jesus really believed He was not to do anything with the Gentiles, why did He even travel to Tyre and Sidon? I believe Jesus was saying everything the people of the day were saying about non-Jews. He was, if you will, setting them up. I wonder if Jesus had a twinkle in His eye and a smile on His face as He spoke with this woman. Don’t you sometimes give a hard time to people you care about?
I believe Jesus was building a platform for something special: the tearing down of a wall: the wall between Jews and Gentiles. But don’t miss the wonderful heart of this woman. There is something in the woman’s attitude that we need to see and apply in our lives.
We have already seen that this woman knew who Jesus was. She knew that He was the Lord and the Son of David, that is, the Messiah. But equally important, she knew who she was. That is why, when Jesus likened her to a dog, albeit the household pet variety, she did not protest. That was a tacit acknowledgment that she knew she was not one of Jesus’ people and He owed her nothing. In short, she did not come with a sense of entitlement. (R.C. Sproul)
Jesus said the woman’s faith was great. Why is that? First, she came to Jesus as Lord. She did not come to Him demanding a miracle. She did not try to force Jesus to act. She came to Him as the One who could rescue her and more importantly her daughter. This is what the faithful person does: we bring the broken pieces and the horrible confused circumstances of our lives and place them in the hands of Jesus, knowing that He alone can help us. We turn to Him as the One who stands above all others.
Second, the woman appealed to mercy not merit. She did not come demanding her “rights”. She did not argue that she was “entitled” to a miracle. She wasn’t trying to guilt Jesus into acting (guilt doesn’t work and it’s often an attempt to exercise control over the other person.) She came seeking grace. And isn’t that true of all of us? The true believer doesn’t come to Jesus with their resume, they come to Him humbly and seek His undeserved mercy and grace.
Third, she was persistent. Perhaps your life is like mine. When I truly desire something I think about it all the time. I am not distracted from my goal. However, most of the time I have a brief interest in one thing and then I am distracted by something else. This is seen most clearly on the Internet.
I start out writing something (like a sermon). On my screen I see a notice that I have an email, so I check it out. Because I have already lost focus, I decide I will check out Facebook to see if anything interesting has happened. There I find a video of elephants playing in the water. I watch the video. On the side of the screen are additional recommended videos. I check them out also. Soon I am hungry. I fix myself something to eat or start to snack. Before long I am tired of “working”. As I lay in bed that night I wonder why it is so hard to get my writing done. The problem is simple: I was half-hearted in my work.
The same is often true of our faith. We are often half-hearted in our praying, study and work in the things of the Lord. We are distracted. This is why James writes,
5 If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. 6 But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. 7 Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.
God does not answer prayer for people who aren’t sincere about what they want. The people who are sincere are persistent. Persistence is not “bugging God” it is about the issue being forefront in your heart and mind.
I have to imagine that the only thing that truly mattered to this woman was the health of her child. She was not going to rest until she had solved the problem.
The contrast between the Pharisees and this woman is powerful. The Pharisees came with their chests swelled intending to “straighten Jesus out”. The woman came with her hands and her heart open. She came to Jesus knowing she needed to be ministered to by Him. She came hungry and humble, the Pharisees were full of themselves and closed.
Imagine you are a teacher. One student comes into class eager to learn. They listen carefully as they try to apply what they learn. They ask questions, they turn in homework, they study for tests.
Another student comes into class thinking the class is ‘stupid’. They don’t listen, they won’t do the work, and the only comments they make are derogatory. Which student is going to learn? Which will get the best of what the teacher has to offer? It has nothing to do with ability to learn . . . it is all about attitude.
The same is true when you are trying to share your faith with someone. There are some people who listen, ask questions, and think about the evidence and explanation of the Word of God. Others already have their mind made up. They don’t believe in God and they are not going to listen to someone who does. They will pose argument after argument and there will never be enough evidence to convince them the gospel is true. Once again, the problem is attitude.
This is what we see with the Pharisee and the Gentile woman. She received her miracle because she believed and was open. The Pharisees never considered the fact that Jesus might have something to say that was worthwhile.
Do you find yourself in need of an attitude adjustment? Have you closed your mind or is it open and ready to learn? Do you accept the fact that God’s will for your life may actually be better than what you want for your life?
The Ministry Expands
29 Jesus returned to the Sea of Galilee and climbed a hill and sat down. 30 A vast crowd brought to him people who were lame, blind, crippled, those who couldn’t speak, and many others. They laid them before Jesus, and he healed them all. 31 The crowd was amazed! Those who hadn’t been able to speak were talking, the crippled were made well, the lame were walking, and the blind could see again! And they praised the God of Israel.
32 Then Jesus called his disciples and told them, “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. I don’t want to send them away hungry, or they will faint along the way.”
33 The disciples replied, “Where would we get enough food here in the wilderness for such a huge crowd?”
34 Jesus asked, “How much bread do you have?”
They replied, “Seven loaves, and a few small fish.”
35 So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to the disciples, who distributed the food to the crowd.
37 They all ate as much as they wanted. Afterward, the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftover food. 38 There were 4,000 men who were fed that day, in addition to all the women and children. 39 Then Jesus sent the people home, and he got into a boat and crossed over to the region of Magadan.
The gospel of Mark gives us a significant detail.
31 Jesus left Tyre and went up to Sidon before going back to the Sea of Galilee and the region of the Ten Towns. (Mark 7:31)
These ten cities were known as the Decapolis. These were ten Romans cities on the southeast side of the Sea of Galilee (present day Jordan). Jesus is still with the Gentiles.
Two things happen while Jesus is in this Gentile area. First, people are healed (just like they were in Israel). Second, there is the miracle of the feeding of the 4000.
This account sounds very similar to the feeding of the 5000 that we read about just a little earlier in Matthew. Because of this some skeptics say the Bible is unreliable. They say they are telling the same story twice with a different number of people.
Notice however that all the details are different. The people had been there 3 days (as opposed to one). There were seven loaves instead of fives loaves and two fish. There were seven baskets of leftovers instead of twelve. There was a different number of people. There is a different location. And some contend from the text that it was a different season. There is no reason the same miracle could not have happened twice.
I believe this is similar to the Feeding of the 5000 for a reason: God is beginning to extend the same blessings to the Gentiles as He has given the Jews. A wall is coming down. The process of equality is advancing. This was important for the disciples and all the people to see.
Lessons for God’s People
So what do WE take away from this text? First, Anyone Can Come to Jesus. The message of forgiveness, salvation and new life is not just reserved for people raised in the church. It is for anyone who will, like this woman, come to Christ humble, open, repentant, and confident.
As I have pointed out many times: If it is true that anyone can come to Jesus . . . that means YOU are welcome to come to Him also. How much you know, how good you have been, and how “worthy” you are mean nothing. All that matters is that you recognize that you have needs only Jesus can meet. If you come to Him, he will welcome you.
The Savior is Often Far More Welcoming than God’s People Sadly, there are more people who have turned away from the church because of God’s people than have turned away because they don’t think Jesus is worthy of following. This is very sad.
It is very easy to become like the Pharisee. We can put up barriers, set up regulations, and even dismiss people. We start to feel superior, dismissive and much more worthy than others. Just because some Christians act like jerks (we all do on occasion . . . some people seem to do it perpetually) does not mean that God is a jerk.
We must always guard ourselves lest we slip into the mindset of the Pharisees.
Third, we must learn to look at hearts rather than labels, potential rather than scars. This is where we most need to be like Jesus. He did not make judgments about people because of their color, gender, test score, class ranks, appearance, or the stuff they owned. He saw past the hype and stereotypes. He looked past the scars. He looked past the failures. Jesus did not see BAD people. He saw broken people.
It is not our job to try to fix people. It is also not our job to beat them up. That does not mean that every choice people make is good. We all make sinful choices. It doesn’t mean we compromise on what is sin and what is not sin. Sinful choices move us away from God. We should care for those caught in sin but it is not our job to render punishment upon them. What is needed is for someone to bring these people to Jesus so He can address what is broken.
As followers of Christ, we should be bridge builders. We should be taking down walls instead of putting them up. We do this by listening, caring and continually pointing people to Jesus rather than to our list of things good people should be doing. If we have learned anything this morning I hope it is this: we are most like Jesus when we tear down walls of hostility and begin to act more like a family than as enemies on the battlefield.
Let’s pray that we would be a church more concerned about welcoming others than judging them. Let us be the first to reach out to those who have a different political view, are living an alternative lifestyle, and have many scars. May we be known for bringing a message of hope . . . the hope that is found in Christ alone.
[1] Tyndale House Publishers, Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2013), Mt 15:21–28.